For His Honor

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

As a Christian, we find our identity to be from a different source. The source is the very root of the word ‘Christian’, Christ. Most people are proud of where they are from, what the source of their heritage is, where they are rooted. Just as a person who lives in Pennsylvania is known as a Pennsylvanian, those who live in Christ are known as Christians.

Each Pennsylvanian is in charge of either acknowledging that their roots are from Pennsylvania or not. Each Christian is in charge of either acknowledging whether they are rooted in Christ or not. Paul is reminding the church at Colossae that their spiritual life is rooted in Jesus Christ. Being a Christian in Paul’s time was not an easy endeavor, you had to hide what you believed if you were around the religious leaders of your area because they all hated Jesus.

Paul, is these verses and many more in the book of Colossians, is encouraging his brothers and sisters in Christ to remain steadfast. To remember where they have placed their hearts and faith, what they have been taught about Jesus and a new way of living, a new way of believing and a new way of having faith. To remember that they are rooted in Christ.

Paul is giving us the same encouragement about remembering where our lives are rooted once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. For us to grow in our faith and spiritual walk with Jesus, we can draw our strength from the Holy Spirit who lives inside each believer, from Jesus who died and rose to give us a path to eternal salvation and from God Himself who loves us and wants to be involved in our lives.

So, where are you rooted? Who do you belong to?

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” Acts 16:25 NIV

Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. Until you read the next part of the verse, you don’t realize that they are in prison at this time. They are in prison for telling others that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The officials and religious leaders were very threatened by the man Jesus Christ and even more because He was the Messiah.

What I want to focus on here is that it is midnight and they are in prison. Two things that are not the normal setting for people to be praying and singing hymns. The average person, when placed in prison, tends to be upset by the fact that their freedom is gone especially when they haven’t committed a crime. They typically become hard hearted and cynical, beginning to treat others harshly and curse God.

However, that is not how Paul and Silas were feeling or behaving. Their faith and belief in Jesus and God was so great that they were proud to be in prison for telling others that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. It was midnight and I can imagine that they were not quiet in their prayers and singing. They did not show fear of the officials doing anything else to them, and they knew the other prisoners were not able to tune them out. This was a chance for others to hear the wonderful news of who Jesus is!

How often do we have a chance to tell others who Jesus is and we don’t even have to be talking or singing very loud. We don’t have to be in prison for us to be able to minister to others. The best part about telling others about Jesus is giving them the chance to make their own choice. Their own choice of whether they want to have a personal relationship with Jesus or not. There are times when we don’t even have to be speaking or singing at all. Those around us watch us to see how we are responding to circumstances around us, how we initiate interactions with others and what decisions we make in situations.

So, as we go about our day today, I challenge each one of us to think about how we respond to the world around us, whether we seek out others to give them the wonderful news of Jesus or even just know that they are watching us to see what we will do as a ‘Christian’ in the circumstances of life. Are we willing to remember that we have joy in knowing that Jesus is our Lord even in difficult times?

“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24 NIV

In these 3 verses in Romans, Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome, and he is explaining that we are all on the same level as far as God is concerned, it didn’t matter who they were, Jew or Gentile, they all had the same condition, a sinful nature. It doesn’t matter who we are, we ALL are born with a sinful nature. We all miss the mark of favor from God and approval of God.

‘We all start at the same place’ gives me comfort. This helps me to remember that I am no better than anyone else. It would not matter if I was a different nationality, if I was born into a family with money or if I was born into a family with nothing, we all start at the place of being a sinner. We are all born into sin, every one of us, not one of us is born without sin and we can move from there.

To be a Christian, we have to understand that our sin blocks us from interacting with God and from being with God. Once we accept and admit we are a sinner, we can move. We can move closer to being able to acknowledging that we need saved. At this point hopefully our hearts are more open to hearing about how much God loves us and what Jesus did for us than when we were thinking we could save ourselves.

We all start at the same place but we don’t all remain there. Accepting and acknowledging we are sinners is where we need to be to move forward with exploring a relationship with Jesus. 

Have you moved from that place where you started?

“Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor.” Isaiah 26:13 NIV

This chapter is actually part of a 4 chapter section of the book that Isaiah has devoted to the end times and what God’s judgement will be like. In this section of the chapter, verses 12-15, Isaiah has stated that many other rulers have been in charge of the Israelites’ lives over the years but the Lord alone is Who they will honor, not the other rulers.

The prophet Isaiah is saying that their confidence is in the Lord for their future, not the rulers who oppressed them over the many years. Isaiah has this confidence because everything they have ever accomplished that was good has come from God. While we have not been in captivity for any period of time by foreign rulers, we have experienced other ‘lords’ in our lives.

How many things in our lives have ruled over us that are not our Lord and Savior? We are a society that rewards people for being busy all the time and for not resting, so the idea of always moving and doing something can become a ruler over us. The idea of needing to have more money can become a ruler over us, demanding that we keep going because we never have enough. None of those ‘rulers’ will bring us prosperity according to the Lord, only He does that. Only when we decide to listen to Him and let Him rule over us will we be successful in moving to a path in our lives that is pleasing to God.

Who do we want to honor this day? God or whatever society has told us should be what we are obeying and honoring.

“For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord.  But those who miss me injure themselves.  All who hate me love death.” Proverbs 8:35-36 NLT

Today’s verses come from the book of Proverbs and Proverbs is known as a book of wisdom. King Solomon is conveying wisdom in these verses to his students. He is encouraging them to find wisdom and align themselves to it. Wisdom comes from God and has been in existence since the beginning.

Who doesn’t want to be wise? Who doesn’t want to have wisdom? You would be surprised at how many people want to be wise and want to have wisdom but do not seek to find it. We know where it comes from, it’s source, so why don’t we seek it more often than we do. Whatever the reason, wisdom from God and we need to be seeking Him daily. King Solomon wrote that when we seek wisdom, which comes from God, and find it, we receive life and favor from the Lord.

What does finding favor from the Lord mean? I believe it means that we will be able to apply the wisdom we find to our everyday lives and live in a way that pleases God. Everyone can seek wisdom, but not everyone does and King Solomon, talking about wisdom, states that those who miss wisdom, do not seek it, injure themselves. They are choosing to not give themselves every opportunity to be in line with the will of God.

We can seek and find wisdom but we must use it then or it does us no good. We can seek and find God but not listen to Him, which also does us no good.

Have you sought wisdom and God today?

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3 NIV

Yesterday I wrote about this verse and how Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory. Today I want to look at the second part of this verse. It is written ‘After He provided purification for sins’. That was the purpose for Jesus to come to earth in human form. He came to pay the final payment, the permanent price, the ultimate sacrifice. There is no longer a need to offer sacrifices to God for our sins. Jesus paved the way for us to have a personal relationship with God the Son, with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. Our sins block us from being with God but through Jesus our sins are washed away when we accept that He is Lord and Savior.

Once Jesus was done making the sacrifice for each one of us, ‘He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven’. He returned to His rightful place beside God the Father. Through some research, I found that rabbis or priests would remain standing while they ‘ministered’ or gave the message to the people around them and would only sit down once they were completed. It was denoted that Jesus, having sat down, was showing that His work was completed. Isn’t that wonderful? We don’t need to wait for any other thing to be done to move forward with accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Nothing else has to be done for His grace and gift of salvation to be ready for us.

The last part I want to look at is where He sat, ‘He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven’. I believe this shows that Jesus is indeed fully human and fully God. If He was not fully God, then He would have no business being seated next to the Majesty, God the Father. That is where He sits, at the right hand of God the Father, not behind God the Father and not at the feet of God the Father, but at God the Father’s right hand. Being at the right hand was significant to this culture in that it represented the highest honor. When a person was placed at the right hand or side, it was known that this person possessed the authority and power needed to make decisions. So Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Majesty showed that He was equal with God the Father in the Trinity.

Jesus gave His life to pay for our sins and after He ascended, He took His rightful place next to God the father. So my question is…………He has paid the price for us to be cleansed of our sins, have you accepted Jesus’s sacrifice yet?

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3 NIV

Today, I am looking at the first half of this verse and I will look at the second half tomorrow. It is believed that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews to the Jews who had converted to Christianity and were facing persecution. Their suffering was leading them to think about converting back to Judaism. In this one of many verses that Paul is using to encourage the Christians to remain faithful to Jesus, he is talking about Jesus. He is telling them that Jesus, the very One they had chosen to follow, was the radiance of God’s glory. Just like the ray beams of the sun are what we can see, not the actual sun, Jesus is the radiance or rays of God, that we can see, not God Himself.

I do not feel deprived when I think of Jesus that way because even thought He is being described as a radiance, He is also the exact representation of God. It is like a stamp, when pressed into ink and then pressed on paper shows the exact same image that is on the stamp. Jesus is exactly the same as God. Then as if this is not wonderful enough, that we get to see Jesus, the exact representation of God, Paul talks about how Jesus sustains all things.

Our Lord and Savior is not a passive God who sustains by simply being where He should be, our Lord is actively involved with our world. He does this not by carrying things around, He does it by His powerful word. He simply speaks and all of creation listens to Him. Trees grow because He tells them to, winds stop because He says a word, waters move where He tells them to move and demons flee because He instructs them to go.

My question for everyone today is……..Do you know the radiance of God’s glory?

“For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5 NLT

In the old testament, mankind struggles with the idea of there only being one God, our God. Paul begins this verse in his letter to Timothy by reiterating that truth, there is only One True Living God, our God. With that truth comes the truth that there is only One Mediator as well, our Savior.

We have a Savior who knows what we have gone through and what we are currently going through. Jesus doesn’t sit on the throne unaware of the struggles that we face. He came to earth, was born as a human baby and lived life here. He then, in accordance to the plan, let them crucify Him so He could pay the final and permanent price for all of our sins. He then rose on the 3rd day as prophecy had foretold.

Once Jesus rose from the grave, He spent 40 days with His disciples and then He ascended. He went back to heaven to be with God the Father. Jesus, as fully man and fully God, is the only One who can bridge the gap between mankind, with our sinful nature and God, Who is perfect. There is no other being, human or spiritual, that can plead our case to God the Father but Jesus. After all, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

If you have trouble talking with God, then I suggest that you start by talking to Jesus. He wants to plead your case to God the Father for you. He wants to save every person, that’s why He came down here, lived here, died here and rose here – to save ALL of us. If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, I plead with you to reconsider that decision.

“Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.” Psalms 143:8 NLT

How do you start your each morning? What do you think about when you open your eyes? I am not very good at making sure that God is the first thing on my mind. There are times when I give thanks before my feet hit the floor, but unfortunately it is not every time. I am trying to be better about that, thanking God for each beautiful day as it begins.

In this verse, David is asking the Lord to show him the Lord’s love and acknowledging that it is there each new day. The love David is talking about is not only from what he knows of the Lord but from within, from the Spirit. He longs for his spirit to be filled with the presence of the Lord. David trusts the Lord that he will be aware of God’s presence each morning and has trusted the Lord for all of his life. He has faced enemies, his own disobedience and a time of renewal with his repenting heart. He knows the Lord is there for him and that each morning, he will be able to experience God’s love.

Lastly, David is also asking God for direction and guidance. Guidance of what is the right path to walk for his life to be fulfilling of God’s will. David could have asked what is the path that will be the easiest for him to walk, but he didn’t. Instead, he asks for the one that will please God, fulfill God’s will. David trusted the Lord.

I am not sure when David wrote this psalm or prayed this psalm, but it can be applied at any moment of any day. I think of it especially in the morning as it is the beginning of the a new day. A new day when we can feel God’s love for us, feel His guidance of our footsteps for the day and start fresh with renewed energy in our spirit to glorify God with all that we do.

How do you start your day?

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

When we ask Christ into our hearts, our lives, we are saved, we become new creations. I have written before about how the outward appearances of that new creation do not manifest over night. It takes an amount of time for us to follow the Holy Spirits promptings and allow our thoughts and reactions to things, the attitudes we have and the habits we have developed, to change. However, the change, if we are willing to let the Holy Spirit do the work He wants to do in us, does happen. It is a lifetime process, though.

One of the changes that occurs is that God removes our old heart of stone and gives us a new heart of flesh. In the Bible, the heart typically refers to a person’s soul, where their essence is located. It was believed that our heart played a large role in leading a person in the decisions they made. It was important then and is important now that we don’t have hearts of stone. God is offering in this verse to give us a new heart, not of stone but of flesh.

He removes the old heart, the old ways of seeing things and understanding the truth in the situations around us. Our old hearts wanted nothing to do with God, we only wanted to fulfill our fleshly desires and do what felt good to us at the time. He removes that heart, the heart of stone that is weighing us down and replaces it.

Our new heart wants to seek God, to seek knowledge about God, to interact with other believers, to worship God, to embrace having a relationship with God. Our new heart helps us to turn from our sinful nature to Christ as we grow in our faith.

My question for everyone is………is your heart made of stone or flesh?